Goliath takes it right between the eyes in this unique take on the convoluted politics, science, and cultural issues at...
Out of the university and into the streets, Briggle (Philosophy/Univ. of North Texas) brings the practice of “field philosophy” to the question of whether fracking is feckless or feasible.
The author seeks to demonstrate that philosophical practice can be socially engaged and practical. The rush of technology is a case in point. We usually take the technological wager, “gambling on the success of future innovations to bail us out of problems created by present innovations....The question is whether we can establish conditions to make it a fair and reasonable bet. In the case of fracking…these conditions are largely not in place.” Briggle is an advocate of the “proactionary” school, which in the big picture “says that rather than avoid error we should take risks in the pursuit of profound truths and great rewards.” On the micro level, the author asks if the risks of fracking are too harmful to outweigh its development in his college town of Denton. Briggle calls on Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, and other philosophers for advice, but he distills the complexity of technological innovation into three elements to assure a “fair and reasonable bet”: those most vulnerable to harm must give consent, a system of monitoring must attend the experiment, and the experiment must be modifiable when problems arise. These all come to bear when a group is organized to confront the energy industry and the dangers of fracking. It is a fraught story, but Briggle tells it warmly and cogently, exploring both the interpersonal relationships involved and some of the geological science behind fracking. The rogues are the usual suspects: PAC money, the Data Quality Act, and the merchants of greed who pathetically hide in groups with names like “Taxpayers for a Strong Economy.”
Goliath takes it right between the eyes in this unique take on the convoluted politics, science, and cultural issues at stake regarding fracking.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63149-007-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2015
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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